Random Letter Generator

All 26 letters, every one of them below. Press the button for one at random — you get its lower-case form, the word used for it over the radio, whether it is a vowel, and how often it really turns up in written English.

Press the button for a letter.

no repeats until the list is used up

26 letters in this list.

All 26 letters

Letter	Lower case	Radio word	Type	Share of English text
A	a	Alfa	Vowel	8.2%
B	b	Bravo	Consonant	1.5%
C	c	Charlie	Consonant	2.8%
D	d	Delta	Consonant	4.3%
E	e	Echo	Vowel	12.7%
F	f	Foxtrot	Consonant	2.2%
G	g	Golf	Consonant	2.0%
H	h	Hotel	Consonant	6.1%
I	i	India	Vowel	7.0%
J	j	Juliett	Consonant	0.2%
K	k	Kilo	Consonant	0.8%
L	l	Lima	Consonant	4.0%
M	m	Mike	Consonant	2.4%
N	n	November	Consonant	6.7%
O	o	Oscar	Vowel	7.5%
P	p	Papa	Consonant	1.9%
Q	q	Quebec	Consonant	0.1%
R	r	Romeo	Consonant	6.0%
S	s	Sierra	Consonant	6.3%
T	t	Tango	Consonant	9.1%
U	u	Uniform	Vowel	2.8%
V	v	Victor	Consonant	1.0%
W	w	Whiskey	Consonant	2.4%
X	x	X-ray	Consonant	0.2%
Y	y	Yankee	Sometimes a vowel	2.0%
Z	z	Zulu	Consonant	0.1%

Frequencies are the share of all letters in ordinary written English, rounded to one decimal place. They shift a little between different bodies of text — a legal corpus and a children's book do not match — but the order barely changes, and E has been first in every count anyone has published.

How this list was built

Every letter has the same chance, which is the point. A generator weighted by how common letters are would give you E and T over and over. This one is flat: each of the 26 is equally likely, which is what you want for a game, a naming exercise or a drawing prompt. The frequency column is there as information, not as a weighting.

The radio words are the NATO alphabet, spelled the official way. Alfa without the PH and Juliett with two Ts — both spellings are deliberate, so that speakers of languages where PH is not an F sound, and French speakers who would not pronounce a final T, still say them correctly. Almost every list online copies the wrong spellings.

Y is listed as sometimes a vowel because that is the truth. In myth and happy it does a vowel's work; in yellow it does not. Calling it a consonant outright is the version taught to children, and it is wrong often enough to matter in word games.

The frequencies are for letters in text, not words in a dictionary. Those give different answers: E leads both, but the order below it changes, because common short words like the and to pull T and H up in running text far more than their share of dictionary entries would suggest.

Sources. Letter frequencies are the standard figures for English prose, consistent across the published counts. The radio words are the NATO/ICAO spelling alphabet as officially spelled.

Common questions

Can I get a random letter without repeats?

Yes — leave the no-repeats box ticked and the generator works through all 26 before any letter comes up twice. Untick it if every press should be independent, which is what you want for something like picking a starting letter each round.

What is the most common letter in English?

E, by a wide margin — about 12.7% of all letters in ordinary text. T follows at about 9%, then A, O, I and N. The rarest are Z and Q, each around a tenth of a percent.

Why is it Alfa and Juliett, not Alpha and Juliet?

Because the NATO alphabet is spelled for people reading it aloud in any language. PH is not an F sound in every language, and a French speaker would not pronounce a single final T, so the official spellings are Alfa and Juliett.

Is Y a vowel?

Sometimes. It works as a vowel in myth, happy and rhythm, and as a consonant in yellow and yes. Which it is depends on the word, not on the letter.

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